Many types of conventional computing systems operate software programs that include a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows a user of the computing system to graphically view, manage, control and/or configure various types of hardware or software resources in an environment in which the computing system operates. The graphical user interface may allow, for example, a user of the computing system to interact with the computing system and its associated software applications, filesystem(s), data, devices and/or peripherals. The computing system may operate in a networked environment and the software program may be a network management application that provides the graphical user interface to allow the user to remotely manage and control other computing systems and/or resources that are remotely coupled via a network. Resources that may be graphically managed in this manner can include storage system and device resources such as disks, file systems, volumes and the like, network device resources such as switches, host computer system resources such as clients or servers, and software applications that operate on one or more of such components. A user views, manages, configures or otherwise operates on such resources via manipulation of a representation of the resources that the software application provides (e.g., displays or renders) on the graphical user interface.
Conventional resource management software applications (e.g., network or device manager software) typically provide a representation of each resource on the graphical user interface using a respective icon paired with a resource identifier. The icon provides a small graphical representation of the resource while the resource identifier is a text or character string name for the resource. The software application displays the resource identifier in a fully qualified manner. A fully qualified resource identifier conveys the naming scheme that the software or operating system imposes resources. For example, a fully qualified resource identifier may include a string a of alphanumeric characters (e.g., text and/or numbers) the indicates a specific file and path name for that file in a file system in order to uniquely identifies each resource.
In many computing system environments, resources have hierarchical relationships with other resources (e.g., files in a file system hierarchy). Due to such hierarchical relationships and in order to provide uniqueness for each resource identifier, a fully qualified resource identifier for a resource in a conventional resource management application includes a “hierarchy location” such as a pathname for the resource in the resource hierarchy (e.g., the directory or folder path of a file in a file system hierarchy) followed by the resource's “simple name,” which is the name of the resource (e.g., the file name of the file in the file system). As an example, if the resource is a text file having a simple name “myfile.txt” and has the hierarchical file system location “/user/person/home/textfiles/,” then a fully qualified resource identifier for this resource might appear as “user/person/home/textfiles/myfile.txt” in the graphical user interface.
Conventional resource management applications that include graphical user interfaces that display such naming schemes for resources typically allow the user to select or modify the simple name for a resource. For example, the user might be allowed to rename the file “myfile.txt” to “ourfile.txt.” However, the resource management application typically automatically assigns the hierarchy location portion of the fully qualified resource identifier based upon where the resource is actually located in the resource hierarchy. A user can change the hierarchy location portion of a fully qualified resource identifier by either changing the name(s) of the directory(s) or folder(s) that make-up the hierarchy location of the resource in the resource hierarchy, or by actually moving the resource (e.g., the file) to a new location (e.g., a new directory) within the resource hierarchy.
The Windows series of operating systems (e.g., Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, collectively referred to herein as Windows), manufactured by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond Wash., U.S.A., provides a resource identification and naming scheme that operates in a manner similar to that described above. Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT and Windows 2000 are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
Generally, Windows provides access to computing system resources via a graphical representation of computing system resources called a desktop. The Windows desktop allows a user of the computer system, for example, to navigate and manage files within file systems contained within one or more storage devices (e.g., disks) associated with the computing system. Limited device management is also provided via the Windows desktop and associated Windows applications that provide graphical user interfaces for device management functions. One example of a software application included with Windows that provides such file system and device management capabilities via a graphical user interface is the Windows Explorer application program.
A user can use Windows Explorer to view and graphically navigate and manage certain resources associated with the computer system operating the Windows operating system. To do so, a left side of the graphical user interface within Windows Explorer provides a hierarchical and graphical representation of resources related to the computing system. For example, Windows Explorer can represent directories on disk(s) accessible to the computer system as a hierarchical arrangement of folder icons paired with a simple name of the directory corresponding to that folder. Each folder icon and simple name pair in the hierarchy directly corresponds to the directory on the disk having that simple name that contains files and/or other folders (i.e., subdirectories). A user can click or double-click a folder icon/simple name pair (hereinafter referred to as folder icon) in the hierarchy to open or close that folder.
In response to a user clicking a folder icon to “open” that folder in the hierarchy, Windows Explorer redisplays the folder icon in the hierarchy on the left side of the GUI to appear as an “open” folder icon and modifies the left-side hierarchy to include a display of any sub-folders icons and simple name pairs of sub-directories that exist hierarchically below or “within” the open folder. In addition, on the right side of the Windows Explorer graphical user interface, Windows Explorer displays resource identifiers for any files or folders that exist within the selected (i.e., the opened) folder in the hierarchy.
Some graphical user interfaces of software applications allow a user to control whether resource identifiers are shown using simple names or by using fully qualified resource identifiers. In some cases, if many resource identifiers must be shown, the graphical user interface can display the resource identifiers (fully qualified or with just the simple name) in an up/down scrollable list of resource identifiers. In addition, if the resources are displayed using their fully qualified resource identifier and the hierarchy location portion of a resource identifier (e.g., the path name of a file) contains many directory names, that fully qualified resource identifier might contain alphanumeric characters that extend in length beyond the bounds (e.g., the right most side) of a window in the graphical user interface. In other words, the entire combination of hierarchy location followed by the simple name of a file or directory or other resource might not be completely visible in the window. In such cases, the graphical user interface can also provide a right/left scrollbar to allow the user to scroll the list of resource identifiers to the left to allow the user to view the simple name that follows the hierarchy location within the fully qualified resource identifier.
Many graphical user interface based applications such as Windows Explorer also allow a user to elect to arrange a list of icons/resource identifier pairs that the graphical user interface displays according to certain pre-defined views. For example, the user may elect to have a graphical user interface display icon/resource identifier pairs alphabetically, or by creation date, by size, by author, and so forth. If a user elects to arrange a view of icon/resource identifier pairs based on one of these attributes, Windows Explorer displays the sorted list of icons according to the user selected attribute (e.g., size, date, etc.) within the graphical user interface display.
Operating systems such as Windows and variants of Unix provide another graphical user interface feature that allows a user to create a “shortcut” or “alias” to a particular resource, such as a file or directory shortcut. A shortcut or alias is essentially a simple name placeholder or link that points back to the original copy of the file or directory within the file system. A user can provide a simple name to a shortcut or alias that is the same or that is different than the simple name of the original resource to which that shortcut or alias references. The user can then copy or move the shortcut or alias to another location in the file system. When a graphical user interface of the operatig system displays, for example, a resource identifier listing for a directory containing the shortcut or alias, the graphical user interface lists the user defined simple name for the shortcut or alias that references the actual resource (e.g., the real file or directory) which is located in another portion of the hierarchy of the file system.